is a 2006 Japanese animated science fiction psychological thriller film directed by Satoshi Kon, who co-wrote the screenplay with Seishi Minakami. It is based on the 1993 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui. The Japanese voice cast stars Megumi Hayashibara, Tōru Emori, Katsunosuke Hori, Tōru Furuya, Akio Otsuka, Koichi Yamadera, and Hideyuki Tanaka. The film follows a battle between an unknown "dream terrorist" who causes nightmares by stealing a device that allows others to share their dreams, the research psychologist Dr. Atsuko Chiba, and a personality named Paprika—a dream detective who shares Atsuko's mind.

Plot

In the near future, a newly created device called the DC Mini allows users to view people's dreams. The head of the team working on this treatment, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside the research facility by assuming her dream world alter-ego, a detective named Paprika. Atsuko's closest allies are Dr. Toratarō Shima, the chief of the department, and Dr. Kōsaku Tokita, the inventor of the DC Mini.

Awards